I will answer these points and separately mail my general argument.
On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Egon Willighagen <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > I do not see a requirement that anyone can take the specification and
> > redistribute modified versions as useful. That is what has led to some of
> > the proliferation of incompatibilities that we already have
>
> Quite so. But at the same time, it leaves the standard unable to
> evolve beyond the EOL by the original authors. This is something we
> often stress for Open Source. I have a hard time explaining this
> inconsistency.
>
That is because the rules, practice and ethos of Open Source do not map onto
Open Specifications just as OS does not map onto Open Data. It's taken us a
year to realise the latter and I suspect the same will be required for Open
Specifications. They are not well covered by licences and Community Norms
will be better.
>
> > A typical example of an open specification (IMO) is CIF. It has a
> governance
> > procedure and is freely accessible and anyone sufficiently enthusiastic
> > could contribute (though not necessarily formal).
>
> How can you informally contribute to a specification, let alone standard?
>
Many people contribute to the CIF standard through mails and meetings but
they are not part of COMCIFS. Similarly I am not part of InChI but I would
expect that a sumbission from me would be symapthetically received.
>
> > CML is offered to the community as an IMPLEMENTED VERIFIABLE VALIDATABLE
> > specification. Anyone who wishes to help with the critical work of
> creating
> > reference examples, validation code, unit tests etc. would be highly
> > welcomed. It's hard and boring and you don't get many publications. It
> > necessarily has to be COORDINATED. But if anyone wishes to participate
> we'd
> > be delighted.
>
> So, the arugment that was made on the Blue Obelisk Exchange is how
> this is any different from MDL molfiles, Daylight SMILES, SMD (I'd
> never heard about before)... has anyone ever attempted to contribute
> to those standards (formally or informally), and been refused?
>
> Yes frequently. Daylight have consistently refused to publish algorithms.
MDL were incredibly secretive and possessive about the MOL-file format.
> Personally I think that is "Open". It's as precise as the "Open" in "Open
> > Data" which is NOT a formal licence but an intent.
>
> To me, the point of the discussion is to be able to explain which
> specficiations/standards are Open, and should be promoted, and which
> not.
>
To do that we have to agree principles. It took us a year to agree the
Panton Principles for Open Data. I think it will take the same for Open
Specs.
>
> Egon
>
> --
> Post-doc @ Uppsala University
> Proteochemometrics / Bioclipse Group of Prof. Jarl Wikberg
> Homepage: http://egonw.github.com/
> Blog: http://chem-bla-ics.blogspot.com/
> PubList: http://www.citeulike.org/user/egonw/tag/papers
>
--
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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